(56) But thou must know this, that he sticks in a continual anxious Birth or Geniture, and would fain be rid of the Wrath and Wickedness, and yet cannot. For he is as the whole House of this World, wherein always Love and Wrath wrestle one with another, and the new Body always generates itself in the Midst or Center of the Anguish. For so it must be, if thou wilt be born anew, otherwise no Man can reach the Regeneration.

(68) For his Spirit always seeks for Rest, but finds it not, for it is impatient, and always seeks after Novelties, or some new Thing; and when it finds somewhat, it amuses itself therewith, as if it had found some new Treasure, and yet no Stedfastness, Stability or Certainty in him, but he seeks continually for Abstinence or for a Diversion.

(10) But seeing I have such an Impulse upon me, I let him act and move in me, who knows and understands what it is, and whose Pleasure it is that I should do it; I poor Man of Earth, Dust and Ashes, could not do it. But the Spirit invites and cites all such Mockers and Despisers before the innermost Birth or Geniture of God in this World, to desist from their Wickedness and Malice: If not, then they shall be spewed out as hellish Chaff into the outermost Birth or Geniture in the Wrath of God. Now observe,

(30) For the triumphing joyous Light in my Spirit shows it me sufficiently, in which I have also searched into the Depth of the Deity, and described it rightly according to my Gifts, and the Impulse of the Spirit, though in great Feebleness and Weakness, in that my original and actual Sins have often bolted the Door against me, and the Devil has danced before it, as a whorish Woman, and rejoiced at my Captivity and Anguish; yet that will bring very little Profit to his Kingdom.

(11) Also let a man mark, when he is in this hell, nothing may console him; and he cannot believe that he shall ever be released or comforted. But when he is in heaven, nothing can trouble him; he believeth also that none will ever be able to offend or trouble him, albeit it is indeed true, that after this hell he may be comforted and released, and after this heaven he may be troubled and left without consolation. Again: this hell and this heaven come about a man in such sort, that he knoweth not whence they come; and whether they come to him, or depart from him, he can of himself do nothing towards it. Of these things he can neither give nor take away from himself, bring them nor banish them, but as it is written, “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof,” that is to say, at this time present, “but thou knowest not whence it cometh, nor whither it goeth.”12 And when a man is in one of these two states, all is right with him, and he is as safe in hell as in heaven, and so long as a man is on earth, it is possible for him to pass ofttimes from the one into the other; nay even within the space of a day and night, and all without his own doing. But when the man is in neither of these two states he holdeth converse with the creature, and wavereth hither and thither, and knoweth not what manner of man he is. Therefore he shall never forget either of them, but lay up the remembrance of them in his heart.

(349) If a man is tossed about by doubts, full of strong passions, and yearning only for what is delightful, his thirst will grow more and more, and he will indeed make his fetters strong.

(140) when it comes thither, where it would be, yet it finds no such Thing; then Doubtings and Unbelief fall in between and come upon it; sometimes it seems to it as if God had quite cast it off; but it doth not understand the Fight of the Spirit, how the same is sometimes down, and sometimes gets aloft. And

(1) WONDERFULLY is a man’s affection varied in ghostly feeling of this nought when it is nowhere wrought. For at the first time that a soul looketh thereupon, it shall find all the special deeds of sin that ever he did since he was born, bodily or ghostly, privily or darkly painted thereupon. And howsoever that he turneth it about, evermore they will appear before his eyes; until the time be, that with much hard travail, many sore sighings, and many bitter weepings, he have in great part washed them away. Sometime in this travail him think that it is to look thereupon as on hell; for him think that he despaireth to win to perfection of ghostly rest out of that pain. Thus far inwards come many, but for greatness of pain that they feel and for lacking of comfort, they go back in beholding of bodily things: seeking fleshly comforts without, for lacking of ghostly they have not yet deserved, as they should if they had abided.

(36) For he hides the noble Grain of Mustard-seed, so that Man does not know himself. And then the World supposes, that he is thus plagued and smitten of God, whereby the Devil's Kingdom remains always hidden and undiscovered.